OF NEUROSES, OR NERVOUS DISEASES.

MXC. In a certain view, almost the whole of the diseases of the human body might be called NERVOUS; but there would be no use for such a general appellation; and, on the other hand, it seems improper to limit the term, in the loose inaccurate manner in which it has been hitherto applied, to hysteric or hypochondriacal disorders, which are themselves hardly to be defined with sufficient precision.
MXCI. In this place, I propose to comprehend, under the title of NEUROSES, all those preternatural affections of sense or motions which are without pyrexia, as a part of the primary disease;—("we do not exclude from the present class those affections in which pyrexia may be present, as fever with apoplexy;")—and all those which do not depend upon a topical affection of the organs, but upon a more general affection of the nervous system, and of those powers of the system upon which sense and motion more especially depend.